“Your beloved Undead King took him away from me just like you tried to take my children away. I’m going to do to you everything I would have done to him if only Meln had the guts to fight me in person instead of using one of his pathetic clones.”
Manohar had devised Full-Course Meal to fix the imbalance in an undead’s blood core for a brief period of time, turning them back into living beings and making them easier to kill.
The spell owed its name to the fact that the god of healing overfed the blood core with light element without caring for its natural equilibrium. When light overpowered the darkness element, an undead would regain their mortality but also lose their powers.
Vastor had upgraded the spell, making it last longer, and added the slight alteration to the life force to ensure that his victims would become incapable of using any magical item they had brought with them.
It was the perfect means to capture and interrogate undead.
Right now, however, the Master wasn’t interested in anything but inflicting pain upon the assassins. The power overflowing through his core drove his emotions to their apex, making his bloodthirst a siren he couldn’t deny.
“Dad, stop it!” At least until Frey and Filia got free from the Dominator armor and tackled him with the little strength they had.
The Master’s instinctive reaction was of fury, his black and white eye burning with the Cursed Elements while his wings unfurled menacingly.
“Please, stop.” Frey was crying out of fear.
Not because of the undead or because he was afraid that Vastor might him, but because the boy was scared of what his step-father was becoming right under his eyes.
After witnessing Lith’s shapeshifting, living with Tezka and the other hybrids, and meeting dozens of Divine Beasts, the changes to the Master’s body were far from dreadful.
Under more peaceful circumstances, the kids would have considered their father to have become even cooler and would have probably paraded him to the rest of their family.
“You promised to protect us and you did it. We are safe now. Please, stop hurting the bad guys.” Frey clung to Vastor’s leg who tried to shrug him off but the boy resisted.
“Listen to Frey, Dad.” Filia pulled at Vastor’s right arm from the other side, forcing him to look at her. “Fighting in self-defense is okay. They tried to kidnap us and you defeated them. To keep hitting them after they surrendered is just cruel.
“Please, stop. I don’t want you to turn into a monster. I don’t want you to turn into Fal- Fallmug!” Saying that name made Filia shudder and her stomach churn.
Vastor couldn’t understand why she was crying or the reason she would give a damn about those retched creatures until he stopped looking at the scene through his fury and started looking at it from their eyes.
The assassins were lying on the ground, their bodies torn and mutilated. There was blood everywhere, painting the ground around the Master and the Master himself red. Vastor looked at his own bloodied hands and chest, finally realizing how he had to appear to the children.
“You are better than this, Dad.” Frey sobbed. “Please, do the right thing. Let the law deal with them.”
Vastor gritted his teeth, disgusted by himself and by the gruesome show he had forced the kids to witness.
“You are right, kids.” He said with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry for making you worry. You have my word that I’ll deal with them according to the law.”
A wave of his hand generated a pulse of darkness magic that cleaned him. The Dominator armor answered the Master’s call, covering him up and turning back into his Professor uniform while Grimbark flew into his hand.
“After all, I’m Zogar Vastor. Archduke of Essagor and Spellbreaker of the Kingdom. I am the law. For the crimes of attempted murder of an Archmage of the Kingdom and the attempted murder of his children, I sentence you to imprisonment.
“You’ll be thoroughly interrogated and once I’ve squeezed from you everything you know, I’ll carry your death sentence.”
“Wait!” Dervalos said, raising his hands in submission. “We didn’t mean to harm the children. The plan was-”
“To rid Mogar of hunger and bring world peace.” The Master cut him off with a scoff. “Save your breath for the interrogation. Right now, you’d say anything to save your skin.”
“You bet!” Dervalos grinned, thankful for the timely save.
‘The old monster was too worried consoling the runts to notice that his spell is fading quickly. By killing my associates, Vastor has also dispelled the space-compressing array so we can Warp out of here!’ He actually thought.
There was a brief moment while Full-Course Meal faded when light, darkness, and life force were balanced in a blood core. During that time, an undead reached perfection.
No more weakness to the darkness element, no more restrictions upon using the light element, and they would be immune to sunlight. It was the reason Manohar killed the reverted undead on the spot instead of interrogating them.
That and because he was afraid to learn something that would lead to another mission and spend more time away from his lab. Vastor’s upgraded version was no different and the assassins exploited his fatherly concern to run away.
Stronger than they had ever been, the three survivors of the assault team healed their bodies and cast a Warp Steps leading as far as their boosted blood core allowed. They jumped into the dimensional corridor, each in a different direction so that even if the Master reacted, it would have been impossible for him to catch them all.
At least one of them would survive. At least one of them would return to the Undead Courts and reveal to them the true identity of their nemesis and leader of the Organization.
‘Once exposed to the Kingdom, the Organization will be too busy dealing with the aftermath, losing power and turf while we’ll-‘ Or so Resnian the Wendigo thought until he slammed against something very hard standing right in front of the Warp Steps.
The impact sent him tumbling onto the ground despite his temporarily boosted strength. Much to his surprise, the same thing happened to his colleagues.
“Nice try.” Tezka the Suneater tutted while standing on the other side of Resnian’s dimensional door.
He stood in front of all three dimensional doors, blocking them with his massive body. With plenty of time and no distraction, bending the Steps so that they would have the same exit point was a walk in the park for the inventor of Dimensional Magic.
“Escape is not an option. You should have thought twice before attacking our children.” The Fylgja growled as many Chaos Gates appeared behind him, bringing the rest of the hybrids to the party.
The Blood Warlock was wrong all along. Vastor had never lowered his guard nor did he forget about Full-Course Meal’s duration. Once he had calmed down, he noticed both the kids and Tezka.
At that point, he knew that unless the Guardians of Garlen decided to intervene it was over.
